What do we have to look forward to anymore?
 
Our economy is going to take decades to be healed.  We have allowed our government to spend us into debt that was inconceivable just a few years back!
 
Our industries are going to be struggling for decades trying to recover from our exporting of our manufacturing overseas.  We will be fighting the low cost of foreign imports made with cheap foreign labor because of our allowing the labor unions, N.L.R.B. and courts to take control of or impair our industries.
 
Or political process is going to be embattled for decades trying to maintain the standards and procedures set in place by our Constitution and Founding Fathers.  Too many are trying to show us a better way that rings very close to Communism.  Name one country that has ever been successful with Communist or Socialist control.
 
Our morals look closer to the input pipes at the sewage treatment plants thanks to the polluting and desensitizing of our minds.  We have allowed the introduction into our homes of pornography and filth through cable television, satellite television, radio, satellite radio, publishing and the Internet.  What used to be kept at a distance in rundown portions of our cities is now in our family rooms.  Lifestyles that were considered sinful are now glorified in our media and being protected in our courts by the justices who legislate from the bench.
 
The lives of many of our youth and younger adults are being sacrificed by our collapse of the family unit in our communities.  Drugs, gangs and crime have become too much of a replacement for the absence of parental influence in their lives.
 
Our schools are more concerned about hurting someone's feelings than teaching the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, patriotism, history, reading, writing, arithmetic, science, art and physical education.  We are more concerned with sex education, Socialism, noncompetitive grading and free environments that won't inhibit the free spirit in any of our children regardless of how disgusting their exhibitions may be, unless of course it is a show of patriotism!
 
We have borders that are wide open and controlled by drug cartels that feed off from the business that the degradation of our society has offered them without much opposition. 
 
We watch as the convenience and productivity of our society has been severely dampened because of those who preach environmentalism and conservatism, while those same ones who preach it ironically do not live it themselves.  Admit it; don't you trust each state in our country to be able to decide if an industry is harming our environment beyond the benefit of their products or services?  There are thousands of watchdogs in every state that will ring the alarm if someone decides that greed is more important than safety.  
 
So what do we have to look forward to?
 
Our youth.
 
I just spent two wonderful days in the mountains with 33 of the most incredible youth you have ever met.  These are all young men and women from the ages of 14 - 18 from our church.  They are also only a portion of the total group we have at our church.  The others could not get time off from work, athletics, and family vacations to go with us to this Youth Conference we held.  They have faith, hope and charity in their lives.  They see what has happened and continues to happen to their world and they still look to their future with excitement and plans for making this a better world.  They see and recognize the truth and cling to it with all of their might.  They look to each other as their brothers and sisters in the long road ahead and as the help they will need in their efforts to make this a better world.  They look at deception, contention, addictive influences, and immorality as the things to avoid at all costs.  They recognize and acknowledge that they are children of a loving Heavenly Father who will help them in their righteous efforts.
 
They are our future!  The time will come when they will be our leaders in business, government, society and church.  I look forward to that time.  They are preparing themselves well for what lies ahead and they are more prepared than we ever were.  I look forward with excitement to their leadership times  also, knowing that they will do what is right and will allow us in our older years to relax and turn over the controls to a better and more prepared generation. 
 
I spend many hours every week with these youth.  I consider it an investment in my future.  Anything to help them be more prepared and better individuals than us will be well worth whatever it took from my life. 
 
We must continue in our efforts to not let our society slip anymore than it already has and do what we can to repair the damage we have allowed to take place.  And if you have the opportunity to help nurture and work with the youth of our world in any way that will be beneficial to them, do so.    The rewards will be well worth the effort.  Maybe we will be around long enough to see what they accomplish and enjoy the rewards from their strength and goodness.
 
May God Bless America and us, we need it!